


live through this

by sinagtala (strikinglight)



Series: acts of intimacy [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Cats, F/M, Injury, Post-Canon, of the very minor everyday kind that inevitably happens when you're a pet owner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-23 00:03:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11977893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikinglight/pseuds/sinagtala
Summary: The cat had been his idea, only moderately crazy as far as his ideas went, and comparatively a low-risk investment when weighed against his other responsibilities.





	live through this

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by Carole. Prompt: patching up a wound.
> 
> Currently taking name suggestions for Roy's cat. I just know that it's a girl, and that it will befriend Black Hayate in time.

_You could stand to be more careful,_ she had told him in Daliha, bracing his wrist with her fingers in the sputtering light of an oil lamp, the better to examine the torn swathe of flesh across his forearm where a stray bullet had grazed him mid-cast. She had not told him _you have to live through this._

That must have been the first warning, and the first time she ever held his hand. She can’t say for sure; Daliha feels far away these days, a vision of dust clouds and sunlight on smashed stone houses, a nightmare that aches like an old wound. She’s in his flat now. They’re standing together in the bathroom with the faucet on, and she holds his hand under the running water, and she is warning him for what must be the hundredth hundredth time, wondering how it is that they’ve both lived through so much she’s actually lost count.

Roy. She calls him Roy now, here at home—in _his_ home, she amends to herself, silently—and there are no more war wounds for her to treat. Only nicks on his fingers from when the knife slips as he peels the potatoes for dinner, or blisters from touching a scalding pot lid, or cat-scratches.

The cat had been his idea, only moderately crazy as far as his ideas went, and comparatively a low-risk investment when weighed against his other responsibilities. He’d just wanted something to care for, he said. Something to come home to, especially because she was so insistent on keeping a room of her own—laughing, recoiling as she dug her elbow into his side. And cats were easy companions, demanding little more than food and space and a place to sleep; of course he’d already read up on how to housetrain, and taken down the shelter’s address and phone number to boot. _You see, I can be efficient, sometimes._

She had not pointed out that he already had a country to care for, cat or no cat. What he needs is nothing more than the sense of something living in the house, standing guard, keeping the shadows from settling. It’s a comfort that Riza recognizes and one she understands more than she’ll ever say. A fragile, human thing, well worth the price of little inconveniences like strange smells emanating once in a while from the balcony, like the pair of thin red lines scored into the back of his hand. They both know how to live without it, but seen from a different angle, that’s exactly what makes it precious.

After a minute or two, she turns down the water, takes a damp washcloth from the countertop and begins to scrub, carefully, until the soap lathers on his skin. He says nothing, only stands in patient silence like he’s decided not to move until she asks for an explanation—or maybe, after all these years, he’s simply gotten used to being scolded.

“You tried to rub her belly again, didn’t you? I told you, cats don’t enjoy that the way dogs do.”

The belly is a weak spot, after all, the soft underside where all the vitals are. It’s only instinctive for a cat to claw and bite anything that tries to touch it. All this should be common sense— _should be,_ only he’s grinning at her when she raises her head and frowns up into his face, grinning hard in that crooked way that makes the fury rise in her throat until she’s half-ready to spit out that he deserves all his injuries and then some.

“But Riza, she’d rolled over on her back on the carpet, and she was looking at me with these eyes, and I just couldn’t _resist,_ you know—”

He’s not afraid of anything, these days. She has yet to decide if she prefers that to the old days, to the two of them huddled together behind the rubble in the desert, or walking the catacombs beneath the city shoulder-to-shoulder, telling each other what fear was for. _Scared is good. Scared means you want to stay alive. Stay alive, Lieutenant, stay alive._

Riza reaches for the faucet knob. Her lips have drawn together into a line, wire-tight against her own temptation to laugh, because she’s nothing if not careful, because she has always cared enough for them both.

He hisses when the water hits his skin; she doesn’t so much as crack a smile.


End file.
